Friday, April 01, 2005

"Clinging to Life"

This is the description of the Bishop of Rome given by CNN. I beg to differ. John Paul II is not clinging to life. He is about to enter the larger life, as some Christians say. For many people living today, death is the great evil to be avoided at any costs. I think that is why people would rather live longer than live well. The Bishop of Rome does not, I think, share that delusion.

I've always liked D. L. Moody's remark about his death, which has been paraphrased so often, it's difficult to know his exact words, but they were something very close to this:

"Someday you will read in the papers that D. L. Moody of East Northfield is dead. Don’t you believe a word of it! At that moment I shall be more alive than I am now; I shall have gone up higher, that is all, out of this old clay tenement into a house that is immortal -- a body that death cannot touch, that sin cannot taint; a body fashioned like unto His glorious body."

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